Facebook Lifts Ban On Profile Promotional Photos

For years, financial institutions tip-toed around Facebook’s bizarre and often counterintuitive rules concerning company profile pages. But fear no more. Facebook is relaxing its position with new terms and regs friendly to bank and credit union marketers.

Many of the restrictions Facebook imposed with its Timeline update last March have been removed. This is welcome news for financial marketers, many of whom were either unaware of these rules or simply chose to ignore them.

Facebook used to prevent you from using Cover photos that included promotional information, rates, discounts and prices. That ban has been lifted.

Facebook admins were prohibited from encouraging fans to share content or use “tell-a-friend” promotions. That rule no longer applies.

Company page cover photos weren’t supposed to use any of Facebook’s signature elements — the “thumbs up” icon, for instance. They weren’t to use arrows pointing to those elements either (like so many did with the “like us” call-to-action). In fact, you couldn’t have any call-to-action of any kind. But now you can do that if you want.

From now on your Cover Photo can Include:

Call to actions such as “get it now” or “tell your friends”

Price or purchase information such as “40% off” or “Download it here”

Contact information such as your website address, email or telephone number

References to Facebook features or actions such as “Like” and “Share” or any arrow pointing to the features

Facebook put these changes into effect on March 6, but didn’t bother to tell anyone. Go figure…

Now there is really only one rule you have to follow for Cover photos, called the “20% text rule,” which limits the relative volume to copy you overlay on your image to no more than 20% of the available real estate. Facebook says it is developing a grid-based text detection tool that should be able to spot non-compliant images.

Not that you need to be reminded, but Facebook also says Cover photos can’t be deceptive, misleading, or infringe on someone else’s copyright.

And for whatever reason, Facebook doesn’t want you to encourage people to upload your cover to their personal timelines.

Gallery of Bank & Credit Union Facebook Cover Photos

Here are a few examples of Facebook Cover photos from financial institutions that would not have been allowed before March of this year. If you’re a stickler for compliance, it’s a bit difficult to guess where Facebook’s 20% threshold is.

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